The Good Woman of Renmark

by Darry Fraser

  ‘—nothing. I want—’

  ‘Go away, Maggie.’ He turned on his side and there was silence.

  ‘But I really want to—’

  ‘Not now, and not here.’ Sam flew upright and took her by the arms. He was very clear. ‘We’re on the deck of a boat with four other men on board, for Chrissakes, don’t argue now. Go back to bed.’ He gave her a little shake—very restrained, she thought, given the anger in his voice—and dropped his hands. Snatching the thin blanket over him, he threw himself down, and turned away.

  ‘Dammit, dammit, dammit,’ she sniped into the silence.

  A beat later he murmured, ‘Go away, Maggie.’

  Bucky snuffled, chucked his nose under her arm as if to say, off you go.

  It hadn’t been a pleasant night’s sleep. When she arose in the morning, her eyes scratchy, her mood sombre, the Lady Mitchell was already under way. Maggie hadn’t heard a thing, so must have slept heavily in the last few hours. Echuca would be met by dusk, she’d been told, so O’Rourke’s landing would be a little earlier than that.

  The bright golden sun sent its rays through the trees lining the bank, and that meant a brand new day had begun.

  Fifty

  Sam knew this bend in the river, a slight curve that seemed to take them on a long stretch. Then it would ease, and there’d be a few twists testing the Lady M’s agility as she steamed along. Echuca wharf was not far ahead, perhaps an hour, but O’Rourke’s landing would come up first.

  He felt her speed drop back. Mr Strike knew where he was. Sam craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the hardy old boy at the wheel. The cap’n lifted a forefinger. Sam nodded, lifted his forefinger in return, and turned back.

  He watched Maggie as she sat on the deck, facing away from him, the dog by her side. She wouldn’t know where she was. She’d never visited here. When her parents first bought the place with her uncle, Maggie had opted to stay in Renmark, carving out that wonderful life for herself. He wasn’t laughing at her; he admired her, even still. But it seemed that the dream she’d had then might have been shaken from her now. It was a very subdued Maggie who was returning to the family fold.

  She turned in her seat and caught him looking at her. Suddenly his guts hollowed and a thud hit him inside his chest. If he took off back to Swan Hill, which he’d fully intended to do, these would be the last few days he’d see her for a long, long time. He’d get over her while he was in Swan Hill. He’d work as hard as he ever had. Burn the grief out of him under the midday sun. Toil from dawn ’til dusk and fall, sober or drunk, into his cot and sleep the sleep of the dead. He’d do anything not to feel the thing he was feeling now.

  He snorted. He hadn’t done such a good job of that these last years. He turned his face away in case she saw the look for what it was.

  Then Mr Strike leaned out of the wheelhouse and shouted around the stem of the pipe between his teeth, ‘O’Rourke’s landing, laddie.’

  Maggie shot to her feet. The dog danced around her, barking until she shushed him.

  Sam could just see the heavy posts and the sturdy beams of the landing jutting out into a river ravaged by drought and low flows. He and Ard had built it nearly two years ago. He remembered that Lorc had come down to inspect when they’d told him they were done. Mr O had tested the posts, knelt to check bolts and joins, wandered on the deck, stamping his foot on the boards here and there. He’d clapped Ard on the shoulder. ‘It’ll do fine.’ Then he’d nodded approval to Sam and said, ‘Good job, lad, well done. Ye’re an asset to us.’ Sam had felt accepted finally, and he was happy that his life would be here with Maggie’s family. Waiting for Maggie.

  He looked across the river at the sparse, thin saplings, scraggly and struggling in the pale riverbank dirt, and at the huge fallen limbs of long-dead gums that scattered it. Looked up to the tops of the trees that towered over the bank, ageless in his lifetime. He liked it here, liked what he’d achieved here. Loved it. This was home.

  He glanced at Maggie, who stood staring ahead at the landing, one hand on Bucky, the other pressed over her heart.

  She was his home.

  One more time. He’d think about it one more time.

  Fifty-one

  Mr Strike had sounded the whistle. ‘But there’s no one here, lad. They’re not expectin’ ye. What’s that all about? Thought you said there’d been a telegram sent. Go up with the young lass and surprise the missus by bringin’ her home.’ He headed back to the wheelhouse. ‘I’m tyin’ up at Echuca wharf, will be back here just after dawn tomorrow.’

  Sam had Pie on the landing and had Bucky on his rope as Maggie rushed over the gangway, her bag slung across her chest.

  ‘Which way is it?’ she cried and ran past him onto the powdery patch of dirt, looking left and right.

  The Lady Mitchell reversed then glided upriver towards Echuca.

  ‘Go a little to your right,’ Sam said over his shoulder, as he waved off the boat. ‘You’ll be on a track. Your ma and pa’s house is the second one, maybe four hundred yards along.’

  She ran. Bucky wanted to run with her, tugging on the rope, and twisting and leaping in the air. Sam worried that Ard might up and shoot him, seeing a strange, loose big dog galumphing all over the property, and likely to bowl over his sister at any time. So he kept a tight hold of him. He swung up onto Pie and with the dog trotting alongside, happy to be moving, Sam rode to where he knew Eleanor would be with Lorcan.

  Maggie was up ahead and now she was yelling. ‘Ma, Pa.’ She ran on, stumbled a time or two, but kept running.

  Stupid git he was, Sam felt his eyes water as he watched her.

  ‘Ma!’ she shouted. Her hat flew off, and her plaited black hair fell in a long tail to below her waist, swinging and bouncing on her back as she bolted over the track.

  Ard bounded out of his own house. ‘Jesus, Maggie,’ he shouted and grabbed her up in his arms and swung her around. ‘Maggie, Maggie,’ he cried and pressed his face into her shoulder. She pushed him away, dropped back to her feet, and rubbed his cheeks with both hands, glee on her face. Then she pointed at Sam riding in on Pie and ran on towards her parents’ house.

  ‘Pa’s asleep and Ma’s in the cookhouse,’ he called after her, and he sprinted to meet Sam. ‘You did it, laddie, you did it,’ he boomed and reached up, grabbing him by the shirt, hauling him down.

  Sam crashed to the ground only to be lifted into a bear hug. ‘Don’t start, O’Rourke. Next you’ll be snivellin’. I got enough on me plate.’ The dog gave a yelp. ‘It’s all right, Bucky-lad.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ Ard asked as he wiped his eyes and pointed at the dog who stared dolefully after a disappearing Maggie.

  ‘This is our hero, laddie,’ Sam said. ‘He’s the one who found her. Bucky, meet Ard.’

  Ard dropped to one knee. ‘Good lad, Bucky,’ he said, sniffing loudly, and ruffled the dog’s ears.

  Bucky nodded, distracted; he had a mistress he was losing sight of.

  ‘Let’s go see your ma,’ Sam said.

  The two friends walked, hugging each other, punching each other’s shoulders until they got to Eleanor’s house. Pie trailed behind them, the dog tried to drag them.

  ‘And your pa?’ Sam asked on the verandah.

  ‘They say he’s slowly coming out of it. No infection in the leg that we can see.’ Ard sized him up. ‘It’s good to have you back, but we were waiting for a telegram.’

  Sam was surprised ‘Dane sent one from Renmark, last week. Said we’d be back around about now.’

  ‘Never got it.’

  Maggie thudded into the house, dived into the first room only to see it was the parlour, sparsely furnished with pieces that were all new to her. She resolved to explore later. She threw herself into the hall and across to the next room.

  ‘Pa,’ she breathed, rushing to the bed. Is he even alive? She slid to her knees, wiped her sweaty, hot hands on the bedcover and then stroked his face. His skin was cool. ‘Pa, I’m home.’ Tears squeezed. Sh
e held the sob in her throat, gulped it down. ‘Pa, I’m home, I’m home,’ her voice a jagged whisper.

  He didn’t move. He was breathing, she could see that now, but he was out to it. Then he frowned a little, nothing else.

  Glancing about, she took in the chair close by, a light quilt draped over it, one she recognised from long ago. That’d be where her mother would sit, watching, waiting. Maggie looked at the medicine bottles on the little bedside table, and gasped at the laudanum.

  ‘Pa, wake up.’ There was a frown again, and he moved his head, as if he was trying to hear her better. She pressed her lips to his forehead, and whispered in his ear. ‘I love you, Pa. But if you’re not talking to me, I’m going to find Ma.’ She kissed him again and got to her feet. Ard had said Ma was in the cookhouse.

  She shot out of the house and ran across the yard. Sam and Ard were idling their way towards the house.

  The cookhouse was stuffy and the task of filling the kettle seemed too much. Eleanor leaned over the chair, gripping the back of it.

  Anguish sat in her bones, weighing her down. It was another day she’d have to suffer not knowing what had happened to her daughter—they’d all have to suffer it. Another day she’d watch to see if her husband would fully wake, and she’d dread to have to tell him that Maggie had disappeared.

  She wouldn’t give up hope. Never ever would. She hung her head and a long breath escaped.

  A thud of footsteps then a beloved voice coming from the yard cut through the pain. ‘Ma, I’m home.’

  The room tilted. Maggie. Shock drew a shriek from her. She reached out—there she was, their beautiful, wild and laughing blue-eyed tempest, large as life and dusty and sun-browned, and alive—alive, alive—and home. As Maggie hurtled through the doorway towards her, the ceiling wavered, the walls moved.

  Maggie caught her and they slid to the floor. ‘Ma,’ she yelped.

  Silent, Eleanor’s throat seized as her voice stuck there. With Maggie gripped tight in her arms, the room stopped wobbling.

  Maggie rocked and rocked her on the floor. ‘Ma, it’s all right, it’s all right.’

  Ard pitched into the cookhouse, Sam on his heels. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She’s all right, she’s all right,’ Maggie said, a sob in her voice. ‘Ma, take some air. Take some deep breaths. Ard, help me get her up.’

  He shot to her, and with Sam, lifted her out of Maggie’s arms and propped her in the chair. Eleanor waved the boys away, grateful. Her breath eased in and out. She held her hand out to Maggie who’d scooted to kneel by her side.

  Eleanor stroked her daughter’s head, tears streaming. ‘I was thinkin’ I was about to spend another day without me girl come back, and here she is.’ Then she held out her hand to Sam. Her voice cracked. ‘Good lad, Sam Taylor. You’re a good lad.’

  Fifty-two

  ‘It’s me, Pa. It’s Mairead,’ Maggie said, clasping Lorc’s big hand in hers. ‘Come on, look what Ma’s got for you.’ With her other hand she held up a plate loaded with fresh bread and dollops of hot apricot jam. ‘You know you cannot resist this.’

  Sitting next to her by the bed, Bucky was watching her every move.

  Eleanor was asleep on a small cot on the other side of the room. Ard had moved it in on Maggie’s say-so the night before. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ he was saying. He leaned on the window ledge watching his wife and baby outside, returning to their house for the baby’s next feed.

  ‘You might have had a bit on your mind, brother,’ Maggie said, passing the plate back and forth under her father’s nose.

  ‘No thanks to you, Mairead.’

  ‘And are you going to let us in on the name of our new wee one?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘We didn’t want to name her until we knew you were safe. If you were dead in a ditch somewhere, we were going to call her after you.’

  ‘And now I’m not dead in a ditch?’ Maggie stopped waving the plate. Her father was being his stubborn self. Bucky sat to attention.

  ‘Amy, we think.’

  ‘Amy O’Rourke,’ Maggie said, rolling the name around on her tongue. ‘I like it.’

  ‘Well, that’s a load off my mind.’

  ‘Why won’t Pa wake up?’ She picked a nice thick slice of Linley’s fresh bread and dragged it through the fragrant jam, about to take a bite.

  Lorcan opened an eye. ‘You take any more o’ me jam, girl, and I’ll more than wake up,’ he croaked.

  ‘Pa,’ Maggie breathed, the slice of bread held in the air. ‘Are you wakin’ up?’

  He gave a faint shake of his head. ‘Not yet,’ he said, heaved a sigh and settled back against the pillow into sleep.

  ‘Pa?’

  ‘Leave him, Maggie,’ Ard said. ‘This has been going on for days. I think he’ll be fine. Now it’s Ma to worry about.’

  Maggie glanced at her mother. ‘I’ll look after her. We’ll be right to work the place even with Pa off his feet, won’t we, now that Sam is going?’

  ‘We will.’ Ard frowned at her.

  Maggie prickled under her brother’s gaze. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I can’t stop him going.’

  ‘You never said what went bad between you two.’

  Maggie stared a moment. ‘We … can’t agree on things.’

  ‘What things? Like you running off?’

  More prickles. ‘I didn’t run off. I went with Ma and Pa, to work. I had a good job.’

  The plate of bread and jam dropped to Lorcan’s chest. Bucky peered up at it and she waved him off.

  ‘What happened with Sam?’ Ard pressed.

  Maggie, annoyed, said, ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘I don’t want my sister causing more trouble with my best mate again.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake—I’m causing trouble. He thought he had to marry me.’ When Ard’s eyes widened, she snapped, ‘He didn’t—I wasn’t ready to be married.’

  She got up and took two steps to check on her sleeping mother. Satisfied, she spun back. ‘As a child, and growing up, I was as free as you were. Well, mostly. But if I got married, I could see I’d be trapped like all other wives, expected to pop out baby after baby, tired all my life, and never living it.’

  ‘That’s not what happened to Ma,’ Ard said, his voice low. ‘It’s not what’s happening to Linley.’ He glared at her.

  ‘It’s what Sam wanted. Wants. I’m scared of it.’ But she thought of Georgina then, and what she’d said.

  ‘Of what?’ Ard shook his head. ‘You ever had a grown-up talk with him?’

  She flamed, and imagined her face would be beet red.

  ‘Look at that,’ he said and pointed at her face. ‘No, you haven’t. Fierce Maggie O’Rourke is still running away.’

  ‘Leave it, Ard.’ She went back to sit by Lorcan. ‘Sam came and got me when I was in trouble, and for that, I’m grateful. But that’s it.’ That was one great big lie lie lie but she wasn’t going to let her brother know that, either.

  ‘We’re all grateful,’ Ard growled. ‘And we’ve told him. Have you? You haven’t stepped foot near him.’

  Maggie’s mouth dropped open. ‘Of course I’ve told him.’

  Suddenly she couldn’t remember. She tried to think. Had she told Sam? She must have. She must have. Bucky nudged her knee and absently, she rested a hand on his head.

  ‘Thing is, I know my sister. I bet you haven’t even thought to say thanks, too busy being independent and know-it-all. Fat lot of good that did you in the end.’

  Maggie sucked in a breath. ‘If that man in Renmark hadn’t grabbed my friend, I would still be earning my own way. And in Bendigo, I didn’t need anyone to—’

  ‘You just plain ran away, Maggie O’Rourke.’

  Thunder pounded in her veins. ‘There was nothing in Bendigo for me, especially when Ma and Pa moved, so I had to go.’ She heard her voice rising and was desperate to keep it low.

  ‘You just plain ran away from Sam.’

  ‘No need for you to goad—you
’d know all about running away, wouldn’t you? Look what happened to you and Linley.’

  ‘Leave us out of it.’

  ‘I didn’t see that Sam was so keen to get me back,’ she hissed. ‘He didn’t press his case any harder.’

  ‘You sent back his letters, I’ve seen them,’ Ard barked. ‘How much did you think he’d take?’

  Maggie tossed a hand in the air. ‘What are you so mad about? He stopped writing soon enough. I was still angry, and yes, scared, but then he stopped writing. I thought he might have met somebody else, but he never said, never told me that. None of you ever wrote to tell me either.’

  ‘Not our business.’

  ‘So why is it your business now?’ She stared him down. ‘I did write again, a number of times after sending the first two back. Just … ordinary letters, keeping up contact. I wanted to send something more, and I did write it, I even handed it to him, but it had got wet, and …’ She looked at her brother, remembering Sam’s face at the time. ‘He just stopped after two letters,’ Maggie ground out and then felt her chin pucker. No, no, no.

  ‘Two? There’s a stack of returned mail in his hut. I’ve seen it,’ Ard insisted, incredulous. ‘Must be over twenty letters, all marked Return to Sender. What is wrong with you?’

  Stunned Maggie sat down by her father’s bed. ‘What?’

  Ard flung his hand in the air, pointing. ‘And who the hell do you think he’s building that house over there for—his horse?’

  ‘He never said he was building a house for us. He never even made out he was interested anymore.’ Well, except for the wondrous—

  ‘Such a joy it is to hear my two children gettin’ along so well and back under the same roof again,’ Eleanor said from across the room as she struggled up. ‘Such a joy.’

  Fifty-three

  Maggie stood at the doorway to her parent’s room when Sam said his goodbyes to them. When she stepped aside to let him go past, she said, ‘You must know how grateful I am that you came and got me. I’m not sure I thanked you, Sam.’